Winchester is a common name for rifles and carbines produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in the US in the second half of the 19th century. Winchester was one of the first widely distributed multi-shot rifles. These weapons earned immense popularity, although their prevalence in the United States of that time is slightly exaggerated thanks to the literature and cinema of the 20th century. Every collector of miniature guns, even if he is not very interested in American culture, would be glad to replenish his mini-arsenal with a good specimen of Winchester rifle. After all, it is the famous weapon that conquered the Wild West. How did its story begin?
In the first half of the XIX century in New York, the inventor Walter Hunt lived. During his 62-year-old life, he has invented a lot of useful things, including a nail-making machine, an electric doorbell and even a safety pin. Walter Hunt used to patent his inventions immediately, but then he sold these patents to industrialists and entrepreneurs. So he lost the right to give them his name, and today we know his devices under other people’s names. One of them is the type of rifle called Winchester.
Its history began in 1848, when Hunt invented a so-called missile bullet: in the back part of a usual full metal jacket bullet a hole was drilled and a powder charge was placed there. This charge is burned long before the bullet leaves the barrel, and its ballistic characteristics are not differ from the shot that is made in traditional way.
Now we have to remember, how all firearms were loaded at that time. To make a shot, it was necessary to fill a gun with gunpowder manually, and to put the bullet into the barrel with a ramrod. The invention of cartridges, in which a bullet, gunpowder and a capsule were joined together, helped solve the problem with quick loading. But even earlier the ingenious inventor has created a bullet without a cartridge case, in which the charge was put inside.
However, because of the small powder charge, the muzzle energy of these bullets was small, and Hunt decided to compensate the lack of shot power by the speed of firing: he created a magazine. In this magazine ten bullets were placed one by one, each with a microscopic charge in the back section.
The rifle invented by Hunt has an original device in the form of a lever mechanism. When the very last bullet is placed on the feeder under the influence of the magazine spring, this lever is moved forward, and it lifts the feeder and the cartridge to the level of the chamber. At the same time the gun should be cocked. Then, when the lever is retracted, the cartridge is put into the chamber, and when the trigger is pressed, the hammer breaks the capsule.
As in all previous cases, Hunt sold the patent: the buyer was Luis Jennings. This gentleman paid Hunt $ 15, and then he began to improve the invention. Then in 1852 he sold an improved sample to Benjamin Tyler Henry, the steward of the arms shop of Robbins & Lawrence Co. He found investors and began selling guns that he called Henry rifle. But sales were not very successful, and investors took their shares out of business soon. Henry sold the invention and technology to Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. They decided to produce pistols, using this scheme.
The pistol, called Volcanic, was produced at the Smith and Wesson plant. However, this gun also did not live up to its creators’ expectations – it couldn’t compete with Colt revolvers. The speed of its bullet was not so high, the shot power was also low. And it turned out that holding the gun in the right hand and moving the lever with the left hand was inconvenient. The firm tried to offer buyers Volkanik multi-shot rifle, with an incredibly long magazine, but this version also didn’t have a commercial success.
So the partners created a new firm Smith & Wesson and successfully switched to producing revolvers. The Volcanic company was acquired by Oliver Fisher Winchester. In 1860, he found Benjamin Henry, hired him for service and gave a new life to a rifle with a lever lock.
Henry-Winchester rifle, 1860
It should be noted that at that time many attempts to create a quick-firing multiple-shot gun were made. But all these revolvers, pepper-boxes and pistols, as a rule, had several barrels, that fired alternately.
The magazine with capacity for large number of cartridges could solve this problem. That’s why Benjamin Henry decided to create it. In 1860 he has got a new patent, this time it was a rifle with a magazine for 15 cartridges that was placed under the barrel. He used .44 rimfire cartridges instead of low-power bullets with a charge inside. It is understandable why he has chosen this cartridge construction: in the magazine the head part of one bullet was situated directly opposite the back side of the other one.
These cartridges with a 23-mm long sleeve were more traditional for revolvers than for rifles. Moreover, these cartridges were also used by Smith & Wesson company for its revolvers. But the small length allowed to place 15 such cartridges in the magazine under the barrel, that was impossible for the drum of any revolver. And since revolvers had only single action mechanisms at that time, and the trigger had to be cocked before each shot, Henry rifles beat revolvers due to their rate of fire: they could make 28 shots per minute.
The cartridge made by Henry, with “H” on its bottom (the first character of his name), contained 1.6 g of black powder and could send a 13-gram bullet out of a 736.6-millimeter barrel with a speed of 343 m/s. It was enough to hit targets at a distance of a hundred yards (91.44 m).
The civil war in the United States has brought Winchester-Henry business on a new level. Henry rifle was popular among both southerners and northerners. In the South, it was even used by a squadron that protected the local President Davis.
From 1861 to 1865, Henry rifle was used very actively. The advertisement claimed: “You can load it on Sunday and fire all week without reloading!” But it was still very inconvenient to load this gun – it was possible only in standing pose. In addition to that, dirt and dust easily got into mechanism through the slot in the magazine (the lever moved along it). And the lever’s moving could be interrupted if your hand would be in incorrect position, which could cause a delay while shooting. The loading process was very long. To do it, you had to push the lever to the side of the muzzle, to fix it, then to detach the bottom part of the magazine from the top part, and only then to insert cartridges. Looking at the lever sticking out of the slot in the store, anyone could determine whether the rifle was loaded or not. So it was clearly not the best solution, although with a fully loaded magazine the rate of fire reached 30 shots per minute. But shooters needed another solution, and this was how the famous “Winchester” appeared.
In 1866, a new model of this rifle was released, which already didn’t have Henry name. Since then, all rifles with lever shutters, even produced by other firms, will be called Winchesters. But usually when we say “Winchester” we mean this the most popular model of 1866. Advertisements said that an experienced shooter could use up its magazine in 15 seconds. This indicates that this rifle had a high rate of fire – about 60 rounds per minute.
By the end of the 1860s, rimfire ammunition for rifles had practically ceased to be used. With the advent of the centerfire cartridge, a new Winchester rifle – the legendary model 1873 – was released. This model has an improved mechanism, and the brass lever was replaced with an iron one. A significant achievement was a new .44-40 (10.2 mm) cartridge, although it did not impress experts of the US Army, as it was a rather low-power cartridge, and the army needed a more powerful weapon.
Starting with the model of 1885, John Browning became the designer of the Winchesters. In 1894, Browning created a carbine for a .30-30 cartridge. Its 1.95 gram charge gave a 7.15 gram bullet an initial speed of 818 m / s when firing with a barrel of 508 mm length. It was the first hunt weapon that used cartridges with smokeless powder. The main “highlight” was a spring-loaded flap of the magazine, located on the receiver on the right side. So a shooter became able to load the magazine “from the rear end,” holding the rifle in the left hand and not necessarily standing, but also lying (very comfortable!) or sitting in the saddle. The production of this model lasted more than a hundred years and was stopped only in 2006. Its commercial success inspired Browning to create a military model with a magazine located in the middle.
This new rifle was created for .30-40 Krag cartridges, that were used in Springfield 1892, but since Springfield was already in service, the military has refused of Winchester 1895.
The advertising of Winchester rifles 1895
Winchester 1895 would have remained an experimental model if the lack of firearms in the Russian army in the early years of the First World War did not force the Russian government to buy everything that could fire around the world. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company agreed to remake the rifle for Russian cartridges, and by 1917 it shipped to Russia 294 thousands of these rifles.
Despite the fact that Winchester 1895 was designed as all rifles of that time, it retained its main feature: a lever shutter. This type of shutter made it the fastest of the rifles with magazines. It worked with Russian cartridges, that were loaded by dint of a Russian clip — for its insertion two bars were provided.
Winchester rifles have never been adopted by the US Army, but they were very popular among civilian people as hunt guns and self-defense weapons and remained in mass production until 1919. Winchester 1894 (known as “.30-30”) – one of the most famous and popular hunt rifles with lever action, as we mentioned before, was being produced until 2006.
Due to wide popularity, Winchester rifles were used in movies of all genres. They can be seen not only in films about Wild West. In the science fiction film “Terminator 2”, the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character had Winchester gun 1887, and in the movie “Back to the Future 3”, Dr. Emmett Brown, performed by Christopher Lloyd, also used a Winchester rifle.
Miniature working Winchesters
Miniature model, made by the famous Canadian master David Kucher at a scale of 1/2:
The new work by the same master, its prototype is Winchester carbine 1866. The scale is 1/3. As you can see, the total length of this weapon is twelve inches.
More details about this gun can be found in the following video:
The next model of Winchester 1876 is made at a scale of 1:2 by American miniaturist Mike Barrett of Minnesota. Although, to be precise, a group of masters worked on it. The final polishing and finishing was done by Terry Farrand and Douglas Turnbull, the engraving on metal parts — by Roger Sampson, the notching on the butt – by James Corpe. Totally the production of this rifle took seven years. It is not surprising that when this amazing specimen of miniature working gun was offered for sale, it was quickly bought, and for a very large sum.
And how much is such a miniature? In average, even if it is not an exclusive collection copy, but a serial product which is easily accessible on sale (like a rifle carbine by the Russian company “Miniature Arsenal”, which is pictured in the very first illustration) – you have to pay at least 15 000 dollars for it. So this is a “toy” not for everyone.
Looking for a cheaper version of miniature working guns? On our website there are other interesting models, that are also closely assotiated with American culture. You can learn more about them here.